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Since June, I’ve been working on a story about racism and inequity at FFA (Future Farmers of America), the country’s largest student farm organization, and the Black alumni who are pushing for change. It’s out today. I hope you’ll read it. 
https://thefern.org/2020/09/at-the-nations-largest-student-farm-organization-a-reckoning-on-race/
https://thefern.org/2020/09/at-the-nations-largest-student-farm-organization-a-reckoning-on-race/
FFA is a $31 million organization with over 700,000 members in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It has 8 million alumni, many of whom work in the agribusiness sector.
It is federally chartered and works closely with the Departments of Agriculture and Education. It writes agriculture curricula that are taught in high schools all over the country. Its top sponsors include Bayer, CHS, John Deere, Corteva, Cargill, and Syngenta.
Until the mid-1960s, FFA’s members were almost exclusively white men. Its leadership is still overwhelmingly white, and disproportionately male. And the percentage of Black members is virtually unchanged since the 1990s.
A significant event in FFA’s history likely contributed to the steep decline in the number of Black farmers. In 1965, FFA took over the New Farmers of America, a farm organization for young Black men that had over 58,000 members. Here’s the NFA’s 1947 national officers.
The “merger” was forced by the federal government, particularly the Department of Education, which became concerned about the existence of segregated agriculture education programs in the wake of Brown v. Board of Ed. After the groups combined, the number of Black members fell.
Academic research has found that the dissolution of NFA and absorption into FFA resulted in "poor morale and a loss of identity among Black students.” In 1965, over 50,000 Black NFA members joined FFA. Today, FFA has just 30,000 Black members.
There’s so much more packed into this story about FFA’s past and present, and essential insights from its alumni about the path forward. To keep myself from tweeting out the whole story line by line, I’ll link it again and hope you'll read. https://thefern.org/2020/09/at-the-nations-largest-student-farm-organization-a-reckoning-on-race/
